New Mandelbulb 3D - iterations issues

[Fiery]

Great new upgraded release from Jesse v1.68 - seeing and noticing many improvements.
Have one small issue, with fog settings - in images which are deeper zooms into amazing box, while you increase the lights
you may also increase the fog, and for some odd reason the fog does not iterates smooth during render
There is a visible "striping" effect showing up, lowering the iterations somewhat can fix the fog, but then the deep-zoom
becomes more "dusty".
Is there a way of going around it? are the setting tips ? Anybody run into this?
link >>  http://fiery-fire.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d37djsb
http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2011/016/a/d/boiler_room_by_fiery_fire-d37djsb.jpg

[Madman]

To me it looks as if there is an issue with ambient shadow generation, but it's hard to tell without the parameter file. Have you tried changing ambient shadow calculation to SSAO 24r or DEAO. The last option works miracles (especially with max raycount), but does take longer to render.

Great picture by the way 

[Jesse]

Oh, missed this one, it would help if all questions about m3d are put in here:
http://www.fractalforums.com/index.php?board=168.0

These structures seems to come from the dynamic fog, as already thought.
The dynamic fog represents the stepcount for each ray, what leads normally to more light beside the structures, but sometimes also inbetween, like here.  That depends on the formula, sometimes structures are vanishing on higher iteration counts, but in those places the DE's are still smaller and the raysteps are smaller too.  That is the reason why those ghost effects looks often like the visible structures or supplements them.

So it's no bug, it's a feature 

The old version had a maximum clipping of the stepsizes, making all rays very dense, slow, and also lowering the contrast of that ghosts.
I will implement an user option for the maximum raystep clipping in the next version, what would also help in the case of inaccurate DE's.
 

[Fiery]

To me it looks as if there is an issue with ambient shadow generation

You know - I think it's a combination of both I wanted a smooth render, which means iteration count is high and ambient shadow seems fine on it's own,
but with the fog added I'm getting the "extra-effect" to be honest....I think I can buy-in to Jesse's idea, and view it as an extra bonus texture.
Thanks so much for your help & ideas, will test this out 

[Fiery]

Oh, missed this one, it would help if all questions about m3d are put in here:
http://www.fractalforums.com/index.php?board=168.0

OOoooops, me bad, I wasn't sure where to post and I decided to go for the "Help&Support section" Will do better next time, thanks for the link Jesse 

These structures seems to come from the dynamic fog, as already thought.

Yes, fully agree - the iteration count for the object and the rays (generating light & fog) seem to have diff speeds or diff shading attributes,
I actually think in this image ...you can almost treat them as an extra texture for the rusty boilers full of "moonshine" LOL
Adding an option would be so nice on your side, it means we gain an extra 'toy' to play with and get maybe more effects - the lights, the brighter
and more sensitive controls for lights are awesome, can't get enough of those, especially, when you want to lite-up a dark terrain or add spotlight,
positional accuracy to get metallic glow    Keep the lights, those work magic.
Lets agree...the texture is a nice bonus for now 

Thank you so much Jesse, that you took the time to answer & read!!!
The new version is bulb-DaBomb!!!   

[Jesse]

Oh, missed this one, it would help if all questions about m3d are put in here:
http://www.fractalforums.com/index.php?board=168.0

OOoooops, me bad, I wasn't sure where to post and I decided to go for the "Help&Support section" Will do better next time, thanks for the link Jesse 

This board is not really wrong, so no prob.  The other might be a little advantageous though.

Yes, fully agree - the iteration count for the object and the rays (generating light & fog) seem to have diff speeds or diff shading attributes,
I actually think in this image ...you can almost treat them as an extra texture for the rusty boilers full of "moonshine" LOL
Adding an option would be so nice on your side, it means we gain an extra 'toy' to play with and get maybe more effects - the lights, the brighter
and more sensitive controls for lights are awesome, can't get enough of those, especially, when you want to lite-up a dark terrain or add spotlight,
positional accuracy to get metallic glow    Keep the lights, those work magic.
Lets agree...the texture is a nice bonus for now 

Thank you so much Jesse, that you took the time to answer & read!!!
The new version is bulb-DaBomb!!!   

Thanks, Fiery.

You could also try to use the normal 'depth' fog for reducing this ghost effect.  Just came into my mind...